


Got To Sin To Get Saved

by Cesare, helens78



Series: Hellfire (AU) [3]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Slavery, BDSM, Dubious Consent, Dystopia, M/M, Masochism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-13
Updated: 2011-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-21 08:39:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/223208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesare/pseuds/Cesare, https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a kinkmeme prompt: "Charles/Erik, AU, dubcon. Erik poses as a sex slave in an attempt to get close to Shaw. Charles tracks Erik down, and the first time they meet, it's in one of the private rooms, where they have to either have sex or fake it for the cameras."</p><p>Spoiler: they don't fake it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Got To Sin To Get Saved

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: **dubious consent, slavery**.
> 
> Set in an AU in which mutants are slaves.
> 
> Contains: BDSM.

"I don't need backup," says Charles. He adjusts his shirt cuff and flicks a bit of lint off his sleeve, examining himself critically in the cheval mirror.

"You totally do," Raven tells him. "You're rolling the dice every time you walk in those doors."

"If I am, they're loaded dice. And I'm careful. You know I am."

"I know you _say_ you're careful. But I also know how you get." Raven crosses her arms, leaning back against the door frame. She's wearing a male body, a tall broad-shouldered tanned blond man in a neat black suit with an easily-overlooked air of bland conformity, as if the simulation of stealth and physical strength might make Charles forget she's his little sister in every way that matters if not by blood.

It's not that he would never put her at risk for the cause-- there isn't anything Charles hasn't risked for the cause-- but he won't put her at _this_ risk.

«You can rob banks and break into penitentiaries, chameleon your way into the cinema for free and moon the President if you like, but you're not going into the Hellfire Club.»

Raven glares. "If it's too dangerous for me to go in there, then it's too dangerous for you to handle alone."

"She's right," says Angel, coming in with Charles's bag of gear. "I’ve always said one of us should go with you. I'm up for it."

"If I can possibly help it," says Charles, "you'll never set foot in that place again."

Angel rolls her eyes. "Cut the drama. Go ahead and read my mind if you want, you can see for yourself, I'm not afraid of Hellfire."

She never was, not even when Charles first found her there, her throat dark with bruises under the suppression collar, surgical staples pinning down her wings. When he peered into her mind the first time, he found she already had a plan for getting out.

It didn't surprise him when Angel, recovered, her wings scarred and strong and delicate like rent and mended lace, came to him ready to fight back.

"I know you're not afraid," Charles says. "But that's because you're exceptionally brave, not because the Hellfire Club isn't dangerous."

"We're always in danger, Charles," says Raven. Angel points at her in agreement.

"Some risks are riskier than others." Charles sighs. "Do we have to have this out every time?"

Raven shoots back, "Seems like!" and glares at him, flickering back to her favorite camouflage, a young, pretty blonde woman with the same strong slender build and elegant bones as Raven's natural form. "It's not just that the Magistrates might catch you," she says. "It's just luck that none of the mutants you've brought out so far have turned on you."

"I think they'd find it a bit difficult to get the jump on me," says Charles. "Really, can't we just record this conversation on your iPod and play it back whenever you feel the need to go through it again? When we bought it, you told me that thing would be useful."

"Oh-ver-con-fi-dent," Angel sings, rolling her eyes. She strolls to Charles and gives him a once-over, loosens his tie and musses his hair a little, a quick practiced tousle. "You just don't know how to look like you're ready for a party, professor."

Charles gives her what he's sure is a terribly awkward shrug and smile. He makes an effort not to sense the thoughts of his fellow mutants, at least outside of emergencies and combat, retracting into himself as best he's able in order to give them their privacy.

But he's been accustomed all his life to eavesdropping on the thoughts of the humans around him and behaving the way they expect him to act, in order to survive undetected as a mutant.

Without those overheard, unspoken cues to guide him, he's never sure how to respond to people, what they want him to be. He usually tries for a sort of cool uncle persona with the younger mutants who make up his team, but from the reactions he gets, he's apparently landing somewhere closer to "hopeless dork."

"Don't fight all night," Angel says, leaving him to Raven's mercy.

With his attention divided, his mental presence condensed and his defenses down, he misses Raven snatching up a pair of dress socks and lobbing them at him, bouncing them neatly off his head.

"See? It might be hard to catch you off guard, but it's not impossible," she points out.

"Of course _you_ can; I'm deliberately blocking you."

"What if you find someone whose secondary mutation is the ability to block telepaths? Or fight them off?" Raven demands. "They might not even know they can do it. Or what if they've dealt with telepaths before and they know how to project lies?"

"And these hypothetical paranoiacs are constantly projecting lies just in case any uncollared telepaths happen to come their way?"

Raven ignores him. "Or what if they're crazy?"

"I'll just have to resist the temptation to smuggle out a superpowered lunatic." Charles sends a wordless question Raven's way and receives an unformed assent, the easy mind-to-mind brushes he's so accustomed to sharing with her.

Since they were kids he's always asked that way before touching her. Raven's talent physically alters her skin. The genegineers examined her inch by inch every day and took endless cell scrapes and samples before she managed to escape.

She was on the run for months before she entered Charles's orbit. Comparing notes, they've both come to believe that when Raven passed near enough to the Westchester estate, Charles began unconsciously guiding her to him through their dreams. He's always been particularly drawn to the presence of other mutants, but he had never felt another mutant who still had use of their powers until Raven. Even if she hadn't been clever, determined, courageous... he would have loved her anyway, just for that.

Charles goes to her now and settles his hands gently on her shoulders. "We've discussed this. Backup isn't worth the risk that I might not be able to conceal three people as well as I can hide two."

"That's why I should be the one to go with you," Raven insists. "You wouldn't have to hide me!"

"If something went wrong enough, I would," Charles says. "And maybe I could make everyone in there see empty rooms where we're standing, but if something happened and they were knocking into us, I'd have to sense and change the thoughts of everyone who touched us: the fewer people I have to conceal, the better."

"If, if, if," says Raven. "You've let me back you up on other jobs. You just don't want me to go in there because it's a whorehouse."

"Raven."

"Sorry, should I use a more polite word for a place where they whore out mutant slaves?"

Charles rubs his temples: he tends to touch there when he's using his powers because that's where his headaches always start. "I think it might be kinder to use a euphemism around someone who's just escaped from there, yes."

"Is it kinder to condescend to them too?"

That's a different, even older argument that Charles only just stops himself from rejoining. He looks at his watch. "I have to leave for my appointment in fifteen minutes," he says. "I need a little time, please."

Raven may disagree, she may be angry, but she never lets it get in the way of the mission. "Be careful," she tells him as she leaves.

"I will," he promises, going to the window and looking out, centering himself.

Charles imagines his awareness like water contained in the bowl of his head, and pictures the waters rising, brimming over, expanding outward, wide and deep, ripples spreading, an ocean. He can feel Raven and Angel, Hank and Darwin, but only by the space he's careful to give them, as if they're inside glass domes, sheltered from the flood.

Several stories below, a mind that pings as familiar, the building manager; Charles stole through his thoughts earlier to discover which condo was empty-- the _(shithead, always bitching about the heated floor in the bathroom not heating up **enough** )_ owner in Barcelona-- and to acquire the keys.

He visualizes the sea rolling out around him, spreading across the Upper East Side. He feels dull sparks here and there, mutants in suppression collars serving as domestics, or put to work at dangerous night construction jobs, or owned as playthings by wealthy humans.

Three blocks away, in the Hellfire Club, he finds dozens of muted glows: so many collared mutants, their powers blocked. And among those dimmed lights, a blaze.

He rushes toward the blank bubbles, his team, gathered in the gleaming kitchen. "There's someone in there with access to his powers," he tells them. It's a struggle to focus his eyes on them, to rely on _sight_ when the richer sense of his telepathy is drawn so strongly to the presence he can feel in the Hellfire Club. He wants to fill his attention with it, bask in it.

"What's he do?" Darwin asks.

Charles eagerly reaches out with an open mind to the new mutant, catches a glimpse of his thoughts-- and withdraws as quickly as possible, coughing to cover his unwarranted shock.

"It’s all right," he waves off their concerned looks, "I can't get much, too many other minds crowded around." He hopes his face isn't as red as it feels, that the prickle of sweat doesn't show. He doesn't like the team to see him wrong-footed, he worries that it shakes their confidence.

If he were a better leader, maybe it wouldn't matter, but he's perfectly aware he's in his position by default. He's a bit older than most of the others in the resistance, he has wide-ranging and useful abilities, access to money and a secure base. He set out to gather every mutant he could find, and when they looked to him, he was vain enough to take charge. Never mind that constitutionally, he doesn't see himself as a fighter, much less a commander. In a better world, he might teach.

In this world, though, the mutant in the Hellfire Club is locked into a steel gates-of-hell cockring, arms bound overhead, adamantium collar useless but tight around his throat, the brass scrape of vampire gloves raking down his back between two clothespin zippers as a human hisses _take it, freak,_ so much pain and sex and hate roiling between them that Charles couldn't even glean a name, let alone anything else.

In this world, if they’re discovered, mutants can’t expect much better.

"I can't tell what he can do," says Charles. "If his powers are active despite the collar, possibly he can manipulate technology? Whatever his abilities, he's fully manifested, and I think he must be quite powerful." Raven opens her mouth but he charges on, "He has a plan already, that was topmost in his mind. It shouldn't take long to extract him. And now I really do have to go to make my appointment. Angel, you'll be my anchor?"

There's a pause as they wait for Raven to object again, but she seems to be giving up for tonight. She just lets her eyes brighten to their natural yellow, watching Charles.

"Of course," Angel says, standing.

Raven morphs back into her tall male form. "I'll drive you."

*

Charles steps into the Hellfire Club a few minutes fashionably late for his appointment, scanning the lobby. Two enormous floral displays flank the entrance, at least a hundred roses in a fragrant mass on each side.

It's the sort of ostentatious display Charles likely wouldn't notice on his own, but when he gives Angel what he's seeing, she registers it, the enormous wasteful expense of it, and he catches the echo as she wonders to herself how many hours of fucking and punishment the mutants here took, to pay for all those pretty flowers.

His reaction echoes as well, so she knows that he heard her. «Sorry,» he says, and she responds with a tangle of anger and resignation and acceptance, «It's all right. I know it can be like this, and I volunteered.»

She did, and the others have, as well. Despite the fact that ordinarily they want him to stay out of their minds, connecting with him like this during a mission is something of a coveted role among them. Maybe because for a long time, he'd only trust Raven with it, or maybe because there's a thrill to being the only one outside who knows what's going on; Charles isn't sure, since he does honestly try not to hear their thoughts.

For all that he can read minds, Charles rarely knows _why_ people think what they do, not without delving deeper than he can bring himself to go without permission. And no one's ever given him that.

Charles brings his attention to bear and accepts the fawning greeting from the concierge as his due, acting just the way they expect him to act, like a _spoiled old money trust fund twisted little mutant-fucker faggot._

"We have a wonderful line-up for you today, Dr. Xavier," says Mr. White. "This way."

Charles has established himself here with some care. As far as they're concerned, he's primarily a voyeur. He purports to like his slaves well-dressed-- he has, in the past, nauseatingly referred to it as "gift wrapped" because the phrase was so much in White's mind-- and he ‘likes’ to watch them take off their clothes for him, and to see the marks on their bodies from other patrons, the worse the better, though he's never partaken of any of the more exotic pleasures of the Hellfire Club himself.

This ensures that White brings Charles a selection of the mutants at Hellfire who have been hurt and might most need help... mutants who are nevertheless in good enough condition that when dressed they can pass unnoticed on the street. His fictional preferences also explain why he usually doesn't touch the slaves he hires, explanation being necessary because Hellfire has hidden cameras in the guest rooms. Though of course nothing is hidden from Charles.

Charles was prepared to ask in particular for someone with a scratched-up back if the mutant he's seeking weren't on offer, but he won't have to, he can tell. He shares with Angel the sense of force exuding from the room down the hall.

«Wow,» she projects. «It feels like he could bring down the Chrysler Building. Maybe Raven was right about backup.»

«Think about having all that on our side,» Charles responds. «That's worth taking a bit of a risk. I can always freeze him if I have to, but feel that sense of purpose? He has some sort of plan already. When we offer him a way out, he'll jump for it, I'm sure.»

«Unless he freaks out about the mindreading and won't come.»

«Then I'll make him forget me.»

"Here we are," says Mr. White, leading Charles inside.

Charles has to reel himself back into his head a bit as he enters the room. The sense of barely-leashed power and seething emotion is almost overwhelming, and his eyes go at once to the second mutant in the lineup. He's tall, handsome, strong-- unsurprising; the Hellfire Club caters to clients who like to claim ownership of beauty and strength, to grind it beneath their heels.

Still, even for Hellfire, this man is uncommonly attractive. He looks to be Charles's age, with a remarkable build and an artful face, like a portrait of a classical composer: heavy brow, strong nose and arched cheekbones, eyes-- well, it hardly matters what his eyes are like, Charles reminds himself, that's not why he's here, though "penetrating" would not be an inaccurate description.

And blue, a clear, bright blue, his gaze heavy with barely veiled anger. _Erik._

«You can even tell that it's spelled with a K?» Angel asks.

«Yes,» Charles answers, containing his embarrassment. Angel is only meant to see what he sees, he’s careful to keep back his thoughts and emotions, but he doubts she missed the way his eyes lingered.

Charles makes a show of looking down the line, closing his mind up tight. The cause needs Erik Lehnsherr. Charles can't afford to take pity on the others, or succumb to the ever-present temptation to smother this place with his powers and lead every mutant out of here. That would only get Charles and his team caught and collared, and there would be another batch of mutants in a new Hellfire Club within a week.

"This one," Charles says, indicating Erik, and he carelessly turns on his heel and heads for his usual room, just as White expects him to do.

*

"Just there, please," Charles says, directing Erik to stand with his back to the camera, in case his expression gives anything away when Charles begins speaking mind-to-mind.

"And?" It's a miracle Erik hasn't been found out, really. He doesn't behave as if he's broken at all. But the humans like that, Charles gleans from his thoughts. They all like to think they're the ones who will finally put Erik in his place.

"Weren't you given any instructions?" Charles manufactures an irritated look. "You're going to undress for me. Slowly. And show me all your lovely marks and bruises."

"Then what?"

«Then you and I are going to leave this place,» says Charles, enjoying the surprise that dawns on Erik's face. «Yes; I'm like you. You're not alone in here. You're not alone.»

He sends Erik a condensed vision of how it will happen, how it's happened before. A show for the camera hidden here, and then they'll take a careful path out of surveillance to the sales desk, and everyone will remember a distinguished wealthy older woman buying a slave for private use. The concierge is embezzling from the place anyway, so the accounts are already doctored. Charles simply influences them to inflate a few more expenses to cover the discrepancies. This time, perhaps he'll add a few more bills for flowers.

Then in the car, lingering nearby, they'll wait until Charles touches every mind in the Hellfire Club, leaving each one incurious: that slave, Erik, what happened to that one? Bought and gone, said with a shrug, the conversation forgotten as soon as it's over.

«A few more minutes of going through the motions, and then we'll escape, and you'll be free.»

There's the usual mental tumult that occurs when someone becomes aware that their mind isn't inviolate, a staticky burst of fear and anger that obscures rationality, making thoughts that much harder to read.

He catches the sharp edge of a question that Erik might as well be flinging at him, it's projected so vehemently: «This man, can you feel this man in the building?» And a flipbook of mental pictures, a man with a lantern jaw and a lively face, blue eyes, a crest of medium brown hair, the nose a bit upturned at the tip. A reel of atrocities in the detention camps years ago, where mutants were rounded up and collared in the first purge in the early eighties. «Sebastian Shaw.»

The force of emotion pouring from Erik is so strong that Charles scarcely makes a conscious decision, just sweeps the minds of the Hellfire Club for traces of Shaw, gathering them up. «No, he's not been here in two months. No appointments on the books.»

Fury envelops Erik, now, and Charles hasn't a chance of reaching him through that unless he takes the man over forcibly, which is hardly the way to win his trust. "I'm sorry," he says aloud.

Nodding minimally toward the camera, Erik lips, No sound?

"No." And low resolution, as well, little chance of lip-reading. The cameras are largely there so the guards can make certain the mutants aren’t attacking their customers in the privacy of the rooms.

Thrown off by Erik's overriding anger, Charles is taken by surprise when Erik strides to him and grips him by the shoulders. "I'm not going anywhere," he says, quiet and steely. "But we'll give them that show," and he kisses Charles, his mind still thrumming with hatred seeking an outlet, reaching for the mix of sex and pain that he's discovered here.

«We don't really need to be as convincing as all that,» Charles tries to put across, but he can't be sure the thought makes it through the emotional snarl in Erik's mind, and he can't help giving a different answer with his body-- he wants to pretend it's for the camera, but it's not true. The kiss is all the more addictive for the turmoil behind it, the purity of that anger, the lust that surges up and blends with it, and Erik sucks Charles's tongue as if he's trying to steal it.

Sex is usually easy for Charles, fun, light-hearted. He always knows what people want, how to make them feel good.

This isn't about feeling good, just _feeling,_ venting every emotion through the medium of sex, and all at once Charles wants it so much he can't believe he's never had it before.

Erik's hand spans his ass and hitches him up, half-dragging Charles to the bed.

Charles clutches his shoulders and all but chews at his mouth, and it's only when he breaks away for a moment to breathe that he realizes he cut off his anchoring connection to Angel the moment Erik touched him.

"Here," Erik urges, tilting back onto the bed and drawing Charles down on top of him. He's gloriously hard and still vicious with anger, his mind a mess of _others of us free, how many_ and _where have you **been**_ and _send you staggering back crosseyed to your mutant zoo._

Charles reaches out and finds Angel frantically projecting his name. He strips everything down to only words and sends: «I'm all right! But I have to break contact now, he's--» a storm inside, a heaving ocean of rage in him, as wide and deep as anything Charles has ever sensed. «He won't forgive us if he learns that someone else is listening. Wait for me, I'll connect back when I've persuaded him.»

If he were a better leader, a better person, Angel's worry would pull him back, a million reasons to stop and he ignores them all, commits himself into Erik's hands and opens to his mouth, digs his hands into silky hair and pulls just the way he can feel Erik wanting him to do. Just the way _Charles_ wants to do. He wants to press Erik down and touch him everywhere, push him past all that rage, push him til he can't help but let go.

«It's not like you're thinking,» Charles tries to tell him, «we're not collecting mutants, we're freeing each other, and some choose to fight, you could join us,» but he's not sure he's coherent at all, especially when Erik starts stripping him out of his clothes.

He can't give up; he clings to that sliver of responsibility, still trying to get words and ideas through even though his own mind is wrecked with want for the body underneath his, for the man underneath all that fury. «What can I do to convince you, how can I win your trust, I'll do anything. Anything at all.»

*

This man on top of him, this beautiful, rich liar with the mental abilities and the penchant for marks and bruises and the hard-on he isn't even trying to hide-- trust, he's asking for, when he's free and able to cherry-pick an army full of whores out of the halls in the Hellfire Club.

Erik knows without even having to ask that this Dr. Charles Xavier doesn't have to offer twice, most of the time; the mutants here have learned to do their jobs with a minimum of complaint (at least if they're not ordered specifically to complain), and this place is safer than the mines or the labs, but that doesn't mean anyone wants to be here, wants to be hurt and fucked and treated like a _thing._

Charles gasps against Erik's mouth, lips parted, trailing sloppy kisses across Erik's face. There is no way Charles is feigning; he's wound too tightly for that, too eager and urgent, panting before he's even got Erik undressed. Good-- good that Charles is eager, good that he clearly wants this, because if anyone else finds out that Erik's collar means nothing, does nothing, they're going to want to know why he's here.

Erik shifts his body, lets Charles tug at the hem of Erik's thin turtleneck. Erik's pushing at Charles's jacket, getting it off his shoulders; Charles pauses in getting Erik out of his shirt in order to toss his jacket aside, dig a finger into the knot of his tie and loosen it still further. From here, he could probably get it over his head, but Erik doesn't give him the chance. He grabs Charles by the necktie and tugs him down, forcing Charles's mouth down for another kiss, and Charles gasps again before shoving Erik down at the shoulders and pulling out of his grip. This time there's no stopping him; he pulls the tie over his head, mussing his hair, leaving his collar upturned at one side, taking away the convenient leash, and he unfastens his top three buttons, showing off a remarkably tempting throat and a hint of a slim-line undershirt beneath his crisp white dress shirt. Erik leans up again, presses his face against Charles's throat. Charles ruts against him, cock rubbing hard against Erik's, but Erik knows better than to bite. Humans-- or closeted mutants like this one, how many have there been, he wonders-- don't select Erik to be marked, they choose him because they think he'll be amazing if he screams, if they can get him to break.

Charles groans out loud, burying his fingers in Erik's hair, holding Erik's face tight against his neck. «Anything,» Charles thinks at him, the voice fuzzy in Erik's thoughts, unclear; there's a cinnamon-burn of lust covering everything. That mind-whispered _anything_ might be Charles's promise before, that he'd convince Erik to believe in him, or it might be what he wants to do with Erik now. There are images racing through Erik's mind, and he doesn't know who to blame for them-- the thought of biting Charles's neck until he can see scratches and marks and bruises, is that him? Or Charles? The thought of bending over the side of the bed and having Charles fuck into him until he begs for mercy, is that Charles? Or him?

It could be him, Erik knows. Charles is beautiful in a way that speaks of having lived through very little pain, his body firm and graceful under his expensive suit, and in his weeks here Erik has most definitely fucked worse-looking men with less talented mouths, less addictive flavors against Erik's tongue. The taste of Charles's throat makes Erik wonder what the rest of Charles tastes like, if the hint of aftershave gives way to some darker, headier musk at his armpits, between his legs.

 _Yes, yes, want, need_ burns through him, and there's no way of knowing whose thought it is. Charles drags Erik away from his neck and kisses him again, his tongue pressing deeply into Erik's mouth, hot and demanding. God, yes; Erik's had men whose mouths gave him less pleasure than this when they had their lips wrapped around his cock.

Thoughts of what Charles's openly enthusiastic mouth could do to him fill Erik's mind, and Charles's eyes stutter up to Erik's, even as Charles gets his hands back under Erik's shirt and finally drags it off him. He meets Erik's eyes and licks his lips, tongue rubbing invitingly along his lower lip; Erik wonders if Charles even realizes he's doing it.

He takes his eyes off Charles's and looks down at his own chest, trailing his hand up his body and teasing at his own bruises. Some of the marks are small, some large, but it's Erik's back that's the true prize, at least for a man who claimed to want to see _lovely marks and bruises._

There's no time like now to try that mind-reading trick again. Charles caught it when Erik asked about Shaw, sent words of his own, picked up perhaps subconsciously when Erik thought of holding Charles's head still and fucking deeply into his mouth, but words, hearing real words from Erik, not just sending them-- holding a mental conversation-- is Charles that powerful?

«If you were really that interested in seeing my marks,» Erik thinks-- and there, Charles meets his eyes, holds steady as Erik keeps forming words in his mind-- «you'd be telling me to turn over.»

«Yes, I know,» Charles thinks, and then he pulls away, going up on his knees on the bed. «I-- saw. Earlier. I'm sorry.»

Erik clenches his jaw at the pity, unneeded, unwanted. That it's an insult is bad enough; that it pulled Charles away from him makes the hair on the back of Erik's neck stand on end, and he's careful not to look up at the camera. A break, it might only be that Charles wanted a break, the security guards here aren't good enough to know when the mood's lost.

He looks Charles up and down. Perhaps the mood isn't lost at all. Pity or no, Charles is still hard.

"I see," Erik says, forming more words in his mind: «So you come by your reputation as a voyeur honestly.»

Charles's lips thin out into a straight line. He's not taking the initiative, though, so Erik turns, puts himself face-down on the bed with his arms crossed under his chin. He's craned his neck around to look in the mirror, but hasn't seen it with his own eyes; he mostly knows it by feel, by familiarity with what those implements can do to him.

He doesn't need pity, not from Charles, not from anyone. He has a lattice of still-raw scratches from the last man's sharp-toothed gloves down the center of his back, a collection of pinpoint bruises from all those clothespins to either side. Brass teeth on the gloves. Metal hinges forming the rows of those zippers. Erik could have killed his last client with his own chosen implements of pain and blood and fear. Pity is the last thing he needs.

Right now he needs something from Charles, something to keep security from wondering what in hell is going on in this room. If Charles doesn't want to use this time to get off, he'd better think of something else. His body told a different story, moments ago, but Erik isn't fitting into his little rescue fantasy, so Charles might do anything now. Erik braces himself for all of it, from touch to pain to the soft wet sounds of Charles getting himself off at the sight of those marks. He doesn't give a damn what Charles does, so long as Charles doesn't betray him to the staff.

«I wouldn't», Charles tells him. Erik gets a brief mental warning before Charles reaches out physically, a little nudge; then Charles's hand is warm on his lower back, Charles's thumb covering a bruise. Too lightly, just for show, the only sensation Erik feels is the slight heat of his thumb and a soft brushing back-and-forth, but on the cameras it may look like more. «Erik, I'm not here to abuse you, and I'm certainly not here to make a worse mess of your life than it already is.»

Erik flushes a little from anger, and Charles's hand tightens a fraction on Erik's body. It isn't much of a reaction, but it isn't the first time Charles has gone from confident to flinching when Erik's anger spiked. Perhaps telepathy has its disadvantages.

And perhaps it has advantages, too, because Charles presses his thumb against Erik's bruise, just the right amount of pressure, and Erik moans under his breath before he can stop himself.

«That's right; you're not here to abuse me. You're here to fuck me, aren't you? Is that your favorite part of this game? Fucking mutants who can't say no because of the cameras, taking them home and cashing in on their gratitude?»

Charles hesitates, his thumb still pressing into the bruise, and there's another pressure in Erik's mind, a sudden cascade of memories, like a glass of wine spilled onto a clean white tablecloth, picked up quickly but leaving its stain all the same. _Bent over and caned, clenching my fists to keep from coming due to the strikes from the cane alone. Held down at the throat, pretending to convulse with pain after pain as the human toyed with the collar, finally getting the relief of being fucked and_ only _being choked, almost blacking out, coming until I nearly lost control of myself; the metal all over the room vibrating with it. Metal weights around my balls, knowing I could make them lighter or heavier, feeling the tug and ache of them with every thrust of his cock inside me. Hand inside me, moving up and up, coming until I was spent, until I was dry, until I was begging for the agony._

Erik can hear Charles's stunned, aroused breaths behind him, and he stays put, pressing his hips down into the bed, grinding his cock against the mattress.

«You--» The slight hiccup in Charles's projected thoughts coincides neatly with the sound of Charles licking his lips. Voyeur, indeed. «You could go any time. The cameras aren't the reason you don't say no. Not the only reason.»

«Then perhaps you'll believe me when I tell you this,» Erik thinks back. «I'm not looking for a savior.»

"And I'm not looking for a fuck," Charles says, but his voice is shaking. "I was here to find an ally. And we can offer you so much more than this place. Shaw, if you want him. Even if you did find him here, what then?"

Erik's mental images based around that are all too clear; he's been fantasizing about what he'd do to Shaw for long, long years, and the images are apparently graphic enough that Charles breaks contact with him, takes his hand off Erik's body.

«So much for putting on a show. You're going to get me killed,» Erik thinks savagely, climbing off the bed as if he's been ordered to do just that. He takes his boots off, strips his socks off, drops his trousers and his boxers to the floor and kicks them under the bed. At the foot of the bed, at the top of the right-hand post, he reaches up and catches a pair of silk ropes, tugging quickly to check that they're still tied tightly through the O-ring. They are; they'll hold his weight when he ties himself up.

"I'll do that," Charles says. He climbs onto the bed, kneels up on the mattress. When Erik looks up at him, he can see how flushed Charles is, how his hands almost shake as he wraps the rope tightly around Erik's wrists and ties a fast, deft, non-constrictive knot. Erik's stretched out now, wrists overhead, and when Charles comes down off the bed, he slides a hand down from Erik's wrist to his shoulder, down from his shoulder to his waist.

Erik rests his head against the cool wood of the post and closes his eyes. «You're not used to having to be persuasive.»

«Not the old-fashioned way, no.» Charles slides his hands up Erik's back and catches the hair at the back of his head in one hand, tugging Erik's head back. The meaning is clear enough, and Erik's eyes fly open, his lips parting in sudden-- _goddamnit_ \-- fear.

«You're afraid I'll change your mind for you. Make you want to leave here with me, forget all about Shaw.» Charles gives Erik's head a shake. «Don't think I couldn't. I could. But I won't. I'm not one of _them_ , Erik.»

There's just enough anger and distaste in Charles's thoughts to make Erik's lips curl up; whatever else Charles feels about the humans, he's got no respect for them. It's the first persuasive thing Charles has offered him, since Erik can't trust his promises and offers when it comes to Shaw.

"I think," Erik says quietly, "this is the part where you hurt me. For our audience."

Charles exhales, loosing his grip on Erik's hair. "Is it."

"That’s what people choose me for, here. If you're not feeling particularly inventive, you can take off that belt you're wearing and use it on me."

He hears the clink of Charles's belt buckle, feels the metal shake in Charles's hands as Charles slips the tongue out of its hole and then draws the leather free of his belt loops. No hesitation whatsoever-- but then, if Charles is still as hard as he was before, if he's still as hard as Erik is, that's really no surprise.

Charles draws away from him, and Erik listens closely, reaches out for the metal of the belt buckle, for Charles's cufflinks, tracing out the patterns and motions Charles is taking behind him.

"I'm going to pull this," Charles warns him, and Erik has a moment's flare of anger and disappointment before the belt lands, too light to even feel. A cheat-- meant to trick the camera, yes, but it's Erik who feels robbed.

Erik grunts anyway, tensing up, looking the way he does when he's being hit harder than this. He turns his face so it's in full view of the camera and says, out loud, enunciating so his words will be clear on the security camera, "Please, sir, may I have another?"

"Is that what you want?" Charles asks. Erik's irritation and anger flares; what the hell does want have to do with any of this? _Wanting_ isn't what's sent him after Shaw, what's led him to give his body to this place in exchange for a chance at revenge. Wanting isn't what has Charles here, searching for so-called allies.

There's that brush against his mind again, just before Charles puts a hand on Erik's shoulder. Charles squeezes hard, and Erik shudders. Wanting has too much to do with this, he thinks, clenching and unclenching his hands. _Is it his body or his power that has you leaking against your own fucking thigh?_

«If it's my power», Charles thinks, and of course, of course he was listening, of course he heard that last thought, damn him, «then consider the fact that I do have allies. And we can help you. Shaw-- you don't have to take him on alone. We'll help you find him. Help you face him. Help you stop him from doing what he's done to you to anyone else--»

"Again," Erik breaks in. He looks over his shoulder at Charles, flicks his eyes down towards the belt in Charles's hand. "Please." «They're still watching.»

Charles exhales sharply through his nose, setting his jaw again, lips tight, but he breaks contact with Erik and draws the belt back. Another feigned blow; it makes a loud sound in the room, but Erik's skin is yearning for more. This, he knows, isn't inspired by whatever Charles might be wanting. This is him.

"Again?" Charles whispers.

"Yes."

The next strike lands, and Erik can almost feel it, almost.

"Again?"

"Damn it, _yes."_

The belt lands, and it's just hard enough to be pleasant. Erik exhales softly, sinks into it. _Finally._

He can feel Charles brushing against his mind again, but this time Charles doesn't touch him, just thinks at him while he keeps up his slow rhythm with the belt. «Tell me what you need, Erik», Charles thinks at him.

«You could be hitting me a little harder.»

The next blow comes down over Erik's thighs, just right, making Erik lean against the post and pant raggedly. There's an answering sound from Charles, but the next blow and the one after are back to their earlier weight, hard enough to sting and fool the cameras, not hard enough to scatter Erik's thoughts.

«Or mine,» Charles admits. «We aren't going to have all night. We need to have this conversation.»

«Right. What will it take for me to agree to be your own personal whore, was that the question?»

The next blow lands awkwardly, almost over Erik's hip instead of his ass. «No. No, I told you already, I'm not here for that.»

«Of course you're not. You're beating me and thinking of fucking me and your hands are shaking because you want to recruit me to... what? Be a part of your private army?»

«Yes,» Charles thinks, pure and bright, so suffused with longing it even makes Erik gasp, but then, «no. No! It's not like that, we-- if you want, only if you want--»

Charles's hands are, in fact, trembling; Erik can feel it in the vibrations of his cufflinks. Erik focuses on the hand holding the belt, the weight of the buckle just on the other side of where Charles is gripping the leather; he gives a little momentum to both, swings Charles's arm harder, lands the next slap with more force than Charles has dared to, yet. But the yelp this time is from Charles, out of surprise, the stolen motion sending a little burst of panic through his thoughts and surging into Erik.

Erik hides his face against the post and smiles; Charles drops the belt to the floor and comes in close, puts one hand up on Erik's forearm, wraps the other around Erik's waist. He presses his face to the space between Erik's shoulderblades, just above where the marks from the vampire gloves begin.

«If I want,» Erik thinks. Charles nods against him, the hint of stubble on his cheek scraping Erik's back. «Suppose I go with you tonight, now--» Charles nods again, lips parted; he leaves a kiss against Erik's shoulder before coming back to lean against him. «And I don't want to stay with you. Then what?»

«Then--» Charles's thoughts are thick, heated velvet brushing against Erik's mind and making promises Erik wants to feel Charles pay off with his body. _Yours or mine,_ he wonders, _yours or mine, is this your want I'm feeling or mine,_ but Charles is talking, finally stringing thoughts together coherently again.

«Then we can get you the documents you'll need to leave the country, or you can go wherever you want, on your own. We won't follow you. You'll have your freedom.»

It's too good to possibly be the truth; Erik's suspicion flickers through him and makes Charles squirm, his fingernails digging into Erik's arm.

«No, you're right. There's a price. Little enough, for freedom. If you go, I'll have to take the memory of meeting me, of any others you meet, of any way to find us or reach us. It's for our protection. No one can know about us.»

Erik goes cold all over. Taking memories, altering them-- Charles offered it before, to get them out, but it's different when it's a threat against _him._ It's a power so far above and beyond Erik's own that Erik goes still, wonders if Charles even knows what he's saying. Charles could do anything, now; he could do anything he wanted to Erik, worse than the others, wipe his thoughts clean of anything but a desire to serve.

«No. _Never._ I would never do that to you.» Charles tightens his arm around Erik's waist, as if holding Erik all the more closely will comfort him in some way. «Erik, I didn't come here to hurt you or strand you on your own. I came here to offer you more than that.» When Erik doesn't respond, Charles sighs. «Let me find Shaw for you. Where he is now. And whatever your decision is, whether you come with me or not, you'll keep that memory. It'll be yours.»

There it is. God, there, the one thing Erik wants more than the rest, more than any ridiculous notion of allies or home or even the thick heavy weight of Charles's cock, moving deep inside him. Charles slips his hand down from Erik's arm, and Erik sees it out of the corner of his eye, Charles's fingertips brushing against his temple as his thoughts slip into Erik's and pull Erik along with him.

They're peering through the eyes of the desk clerk, looking through appointments. A familiar name draws Erik's attention, and Charles seizes on it, rebounds from the desk clerk and into Mr. White, finding an address for this associate of Shaw's. The awareness sweeps up, and it's like flying, floating over the city, if the city's million glowing lights were all minds, instead, each of them a presence in the darkness. Then one to another, another to the next, and it should be leaving Erik dizzy to go from mind to mind so quickly, but it doesn't, he can keep up, he can follow it.

He follows Charles through the streets and buildings, climbs a skyscraper with him, pushes through the mess of minds-- _wrong, not you, all wrong, not that one_ \-- and then there's a glow, neon bright, an uncollared mutant who draws Charles in like a siren.

«Janos Quested», Erik thinks, getting an answering affirmation from Charles, and now Erik's on the outside, sensing what Quested's doing but not what he's thinking, not all the details, not _enough,_ so close, not enough, and Erik's straining at Charles now, deaf and blind and riding on nothing but Charles's grace, can't reach out, can't take, can't _kill_ \--

Charles's arm tightens hard around Erik's waist, and Erik falls back into his own body, sagging against the ropes holding his wrists above him. Charles is still across Manhattan, still has his fingertips pressed to his temple, but he's rocking against Erik's body, too, keeping him pinned between his front and that heavy cold post in front of him. Erik feels drained, exhausted, pinpricks of tears at the corners of his eyes. So close, so _fucking_ close, or was any of that real at all?

Behind him, Charles presses against Erik's back, breath picking up. «Yes» comes through, but what the hell does it mean? Erik bites his lower lip, waiting, waiting.

«All right.» Charles's fingertips come away from his temple, and his hand slides back up Erik's arm. He stretches up as far as he can, gets his fingers locked into Erik's. Awkward, the height difference matters here, but Erik tightens his fingers on Charles's and keeps breathing, waiting for more. «Fifteen days.» An address imprints itself into Erik's mind; there's no need to try to memorize it, it's just there, and Erik somehow knows he won't forget it. «He'll be arriving in the city in fifteen days, and he won't be alone. He has a telepath working for him, I can't tell who-- Janos there was a little too distracted by tits to remember her face.» There's more than a hint of annoyance in Charles's mind at that, which is, Erik thinks, somewhat rich, considering that Charles has been grinding his erection against Erik's ass for a good five minutes now. Lustful distraction is hardly limited to the side of the devils.

Still, if Charles picks up on that stray thought, it doesn't penetrate deeply enough to stop him. His cock is still thick and hard against Erik's body, and for all Erik's thoughts are a tangle, his body's been on edge for what seems like hours, or even days; he spreads his legs apart minutely, just enough to try to fit Charles between them a little better. Charles takes advantage, and the hand that's still around Erik's waist splays out, rubbing gently against Erik's lower belly.

«Here,» Erik thinks, and Charles surges forward, but that isn't what Erik meant. «Is he coming here?»

«No. Not this time, not the next. He's working on something else, some _where_ else-- he isn't going to spend any time looking for power here, not when he's found so little in the past.» A small amount of chagrin leaks through, and at first Erik wonders if that's because Charles has finally realized what his body's up to, but no. «I suppose I've had an advantage, living nearby. I've gotten to everyone he wanted first. I can't say I'm sorry.»

Not sorry. Not sorry, when it's his fault Erik's been here like this for weeks, here having to lie still and get fucked and scream himself hoarse. He's been wasting his time on a place Shaw wasn't even coming back to, because Charles has been here already collecting strays. Erik's mind seethes with rage, and he knows just how far he's been painted into a corner, how few options he has left.

«Come with me», Charles urges him. «He has allies; you could do with some. He's got a telepath; I can counter her.» The motions of Charles's body, his hips, his face brushing back and forth against the back of Erik's neck-- it's all getting more and more urgent, and it's the touches that are breaking down Erik's resolve, little by little. Erik hopes like hell it's all subconscious on Charles's part, maybe a result of using his power so extravagantly; if Charles can seduce him into taking leave of his senses, there is no way he'll ever get out from under Charles's grasp, even if Charles is telling the truth about letting Erik leave once his search for Shaw is ended.

Charles takes a deep, slow breath and comes back down off his toes, losing his grip on Erik's fingers, stepping away a fraction of an inch. He licks his lips-- Erik can hear the slow wet smack of his tongue moving, _fuck_ \-- and slides his arm out from around Erik's waist, settling both hands on Erik's hips and squeezing.

And then he steps away completely.

«Please, Erik. Please.»

Erik hangs there, caught up in the ropes and tangled up in all the thoughts of everything Charles is offering him. He closes his eyes, rests his forehead against the post.

«I can feel how much you want to,» Charles thinks, but it's tentative, gentle as a whisper. «You take risks every day, so much more than what I'm begging you for tonight. Take this chance, Erik.»

Erik swallows, swallows again, wonders how he'll ever know if it was his choice, if he still has any freedom left at all.

Take a chance, Charles said. All right. A chance.

"Fuck me," Erik whispers.

Charles's hands go right back to Erik's hips, squeeze tightly. «What?»

"Fuck me." «Please.» He puts all his attention on what he’s feeling, like a wall between them, and tries not to let the thought take shape for Charles to steal from him, but he knows he can’t allow Charles to be his benefactor, putting Erik in his debt.

If he leaves here tonight, he needs something to hold over Charles, a grip on him, some kind of complicity. He needs to be on the inside of whatever the hell it is that Charles is doing, deeper than allies or comrades or friends. Maybe Charles is telling the truth and he doesn't fuck the mutants he comes here to free, but everything in his body tells Erik he wants this, wants to bend those inner rules, that sense of control. Push at that now, and maybe later on Charles won't get in the way when the time comes for Erik to destroy Shaw and all the little pieces of Shaw's empire Erik can find. Push now, and maybe it decides the endgame before the pieces are even on the board.

His conscious mind works with the sensations he's feeling: the leftover sting of Charles's belt, the sweat coming down between his shoulders and running over his scratches, the tug of the rope around his wrists, the deep solid need in the pit of his belly. It's not a stretch. He's hard. He wants to get fucked, wants to come. Charles could be good at it. Charles is there, and Erik's body's gotten accustomed to being used.

«Erik--» Charles comes in close, a tremor running through his hands, his arms, his entire fucking body. «You don't have to. You don't ever have to. It's your choice. Yours. I swear.»

«I know», Erik thinks, and maybe he can't be sure, not completely, but if these are the cards he's been given, he's going to deal them out and see how they play. «I want you to. I want you to. Fuck me.»

*

Charles closes his eyes and presses his face into the back of Erik's neck, above the collar that does nothing at all to curb Erik's power. «I can't claim I don't want that--» and he feels a twinge of humor in Erik amidst everything else, because that’s more than evident; Charles is already gripping Erik's hips, already mouthing his nape.

«You want it now, but will you regret it,» Charles asks, «this is too important...» and he gives up on words and simply reflects back to Erik what Charles is getting from him, anger, suspicion, conflict and desire, and he projects his own reaction: shaken, uncertain but wanting so much that he's not sure he could resist even if he truly believed that was the best decision.

And he can sense vividly how Erik responds by submerging those doubts and focusing all his attention on his body, his cock, how much he wants to be touched and fucked and hurt. It's almost a formless desire at first, just his body, anyone would do, but as Charles waits him out, the image gets clearer. Charles's breath at the back of his neck, his lips, the pleasure Erik took in their first turbulent kiss-- Erik wants his mouth, wants more of his mouth, _his_ mouth, not just some faceless bastard who comes here to fuck mutants. He's responding to Charles's hands, wanting more contact, more touch, his skin almost burning with his urgency.

Charles can't hold back now, if he ever could, stripping the rest of his clothes and pressing skin-to-skin against Erik. This position won't work, and he feels a moment's annoyance at the complications of the awkward physical world, a passing temptation to pour satisfaction directly into Erik's brain and ride Erik's experience to his own release... but that's not what Erik's asking for, not what he wants, would likely only frighten and enrage him, that evidence of just how effectively Charles could manipulate his mind.

He fumbles to untie the ropes and draws Erik back by his hips, sliding his hands up to bracket Erik's surprisingly narrow waist, and cups his ass, checking-- though of course, he knows-- that Erik's already prepared. He slips two fingers in anyway, scissoring gently to make sure, though he can feel the ache of frustration coming off Erik in waves vast enough to drown in.

«I know you want it to hurt, but I don't want to harm you,» Charles tries to project, but as much as he dwells in the mind, there's only so much even he can deny his body, and Erik is so ready, the heavy muscles of his arms starkly defined as he braces himself hard against the bedpost.

And Charles can't deny, can barely contain, the deep thrill he feels as he guides himself against the tight cinch of Erik's ass, as he sinks into him, feeling him shake, so much power shivering through the body underneath him and yet Charles _has_ him.

He knows every kind of sex it's possible to have and quite a bit that isn't-- what he hasn't done himself he's overheard from others. He's fucked with an edge of violence before, when it was what his partner wanted, and maybe that's what this is too; when he withdraws and drives brutally back in, maybe it's only because that's what Erik craves from him.

But it feels like wholly his own urge, if only because it's so mindless, welling up from deep inside where the light of reason has never reached. His hips slam and slam and Erik's body reverberates with every thrust, muscles jumping as he holds himself in place for it, shoves back for more.

Charles slides his palm up along the scratches and bruises of Erik’s abraded back, and hooks his fingers under the dead suppression collar.

«This useless thing,» he drives the words into Erik's mind as fiercely as he drives into his body, «I can't wait to take it off you,» and put his hands there, his mouth, bite down and leave his mark on Erik, just there, where no one has ever touched him.

Erik's thoughts pitch with desperation so profound it's almost alarm, _now, now, now,_ and at once Charles slides his other hand around Erik's body to close hard around his cock as if he were the one under mind control; he tugs roughly in time with his last few shattering thrusts and pulls at the collar around Erik's neck, his own orgasm sweeping through him and then nearly subsumed in Erik's deluge of pain-pressure-pleasure, as Erik falls apart in his arms, coming til his skin shivers with it, his body heaving with a dozen different kinds of relief he won't acknowledge even to himself.

At length Charles lets go, eases their bodies apart, and backs off a step, keeping just one hand light on Erik's hip. For good or ill, he made this decision, and if he has to walk out of here alone and smelling of sex, he's going to deserve every moment of shamed disappointment he'll feel from the rest of the team.

He'll deserve it if Erik turns on him now. And he might. Charles can only guess at the extent of his power, but he could feel through Erik how everything metal in the room sings for him, offers its potential to him. And there is a great deal of metal around them.

It would be a risk, it might cost him, but Erik could kill Charles with any number of things in this room and make it look like an accident, and they both know it.

Erik stands and runs his hands through hair darkened with sweat, turning and looking down at Charles; he seems taller now even than before, comfortably naked, utterly self-possessed, entirely self-sufficient.

"Well?" he says. "Get dressed. Let's go."

*

When he reaches out to her, Charles finds Angel chilled with fear and anger.

«It's been forty-seven minutes!»

«I'm sorry,» Charles tells her, doing up his tie. The time seems both too long and impossibly short, for all that's happened. He shouldn't have taken the extra few minutes to clean up, but worrying about what the others would think of his debauched state is a distraction he can't afford, if he's to get them out of here. «He's distrustful, and he has access to his powers. I didn't want to give him any reason to doubt us. I needed to be able to honestly say he was only dealing with me.»

«You just get your ass out of there,» Angel retorts, «and you better think of something good to say to Raven if you want that ass to stay unkicked.»

«We're leaving the room in a moment,» Charles sends.

"How does this work?" asks Erik, poised as if he thinks this might involve a footrace, or a fistfight.

"We try to be as inconspicuous as possible until that stops working," says Charles, "and then I start changing minds."

Erik glances at him inscrutably; Charles can't tune into him, he's too focused on the people moving through the corridors, feeling them pass, their intentions, which directions they'll go. "Just follow my lead, try not to attract notice, don't meet anyone's eyes if you can help it."

"Will that break the spell?" Erik sounds darkly amused.

"The more memorable you are, the more work I'll have to do," Charles answers. "I'm not inexhaustible." Erik's amusement grows more pronounced at that, enough that Charles can't help but pick it up and laugh ruefully a little himself. "Yes. Well."

They can't linger much longer without looking strange on the security camera, Charles is running out of accessories to fiddle with. There's still a woman in the corridor but this seems to be as good as it's going to get.

"Now," he says, and leads Erik out.

Erik is tense and very clearly spoiling to fight his way out, and Charles sends, «Calm, please. You're attracting notice.»

«Easy for you to say.»

Charles links briefly with Erik, giving him Charles's experience of walking down the corridor, keeping his mind open to everyone who sees them, finding hints of suspicion and quelling them as unobtrusively as possible, each thought an effort.

«Not easy,» he shares. «Please try to be calm.»

Erik doesn't exactly calm himself, but he feigns it more effectively as he follows Charles down, skirting the most populated areas. It's awful that the Hellfire Club is so beautiful, the restored antique wallpaper, the carpet thick and springy underfoot, flowers at the end of every hall. Charles hates this place.

Once they're out of view of any cameras, Charles has to stop briefly and press his knuckles to his temple to give the guards on the side exit a memory of his departure, alone.

Talking mind to mind with Erik wasn't very taxing, he finds that almost more natural than talking, in truth. But finding Quested took significant exertion, and now, this... he absolutely has to get everything right.

Erik brushes his hand and projects, «Now who needs to stay calm?»

Charles exhales and nods, forcing his shoulders to drop and his body to relax. He's done this before, he can do it this time. Erik follows him through a last corridor and down a short flight of stairs.

Two people at the sales desk, the clerk and a guard. Charles guides Erik to stand near the door while he influences these two. The clerk turns to his netbook and begins typing up the bill of sale. Charles situates himself behind the man's eyes, ransacks his thoughts, finds a likely buyer who prizes discretion and gives the clerk the memory of the transaction. When he comes back to himself, his temples are throbbing.

Fortunately the guard is easier, he's bored and paying little attention anyway. Charles shifts his memory of Erik and Charles to Erik and an older woman, the woman sorting things out at the desk; this can be blurry, since Gerald here isn't interested, but it still has to _be_ there. Charles pastes over reality with the vague false impression and motions to Erik to leave, stepping after him and shutting the door.

Safely outside, he keeps his awareness open to the guard and the clerk until he's sure they remember no glimpses of Charles when Erik left. The pit of his stomach feels sick and hollow by the time he finishes.

With exquisite timing, Raven drives up and eases the car near the curb. From behind her male mask she's glaring at him ferociously. Angel looks none too pleased with him either.

"This is our ride," he says, and Erik precedes him into the backseat. Raven drives out into traffic and tries to take an illegal left turn, locking up the street.

"All according to plan," Charles assures Erik, and rolls his shoulders, looking to Angel.

«You think you can stick with me this time?» she asks, piqued, but she gives her agreement and allows him to draw on her knowledge as he sends his mind back to the Hellfire Club.

The humans at the Club are just doing their jobs, incredibly, most of them insensible to the misery and horror of what they're perpetuating. The mutants are practically livestock to them, and as much as their casual bigotry disgusts Charles, it does make this easier.

After a lifetime of hiding and a few near-misses-- he once came closer than he'd like to recall to receiving a lobotomy-- Charles doesn't have many reservations about trifling with the minds of humans, and when the humans are as casually exploitative as this lot, he has none.

He blunts memories of Erik, encourages disinterest, sows apathy. Angel gives him some of her own experiences in the Club to use to create false but convincing impressions that help him alter existing thoughts and plant new ones. He can't give lasting orders; his influence fades unless he changes ideas and memories themselves, so he does, systematically, til he's satisfied that Erik and his team are safe and draws his consciousness back into himself.

Though his own head is the last place he wants to be right now. The migraine is unbelievable. He covers his eyes.

"--so stupid, Charles!" Raven is saying, and he can't disagree. He should've been more clever than to search for one person among all the minds of Manhattan, knowing as he did that he still had this enormous task ahead of him.

But it was worth it; he convinced Erik, brought him out, and the car is moving and the emotions around him are easing and they're safe, and since he's already hurting it hardly makes sense to spare himself, so he splashes out awareness toward Darwin and Hank as well, and they're fine, and everything will be all right, and he can sleep.


End file.
